Modern WisdomDavid Goggins & Elon Musk's Performance Secrets - Polina Pompliano | Modern Wisdom Podcast 298
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
130 min read · 26,151 words- 0:00 – 0:47
Elon Musk’s ‘human as computer’ model: upgrading your mental software
- PPPolina Pompliano
When Elon Musk looks at people, he actually sees computers. He looks at you and he's like, "Wow, Kris. Like, look, you have the hardware that you were born with, which is your brain and the genes you got from your parents. But then there's also the software, the stuff that you consume on a daily basis, the content that you consume, the things that you learn that constantly upgrade your hardware. So what software are you installing in your mind on a daily basis?" And, and the way I think about it is like an iPhone. Like, are you operating at the latest iPhone update or are you still on like iOS 4? People like Elon are constantly upgrading that hardware. He sees the brain as a tool that's malleable, not something that's fixed and you're born with.
- 0:47 – 2:36
Profiling surprising heroes: why David Goggins won her over
- CWChris Williamson
So you, you do The Profile, where you write a, a dossier about some of the most interesting people on Earth. Was there anyone that comes to mind as a person who you didn't really know if you were going to like them, and then after profiling them you ended up becoming a fan?
- PPPolina Pompliano
Ooh, that's interesting. Okay. So one that I wasn't really sure about was David Goggins, who, um, is this ultra-athlete. Uh, he went through BUD/S training, uh, for Navy SEALs, like, uh, several different times. And when I first came across his story, I was like, "I don't know. This guy just seems like very, you know, all in, aggressive, uh, very, uh, like a, like a man's man." I was like, "I'm not sure that I'll learn a lot from an ultra-athlete." Um, at the time I was training for a marathon when I first came across his story, so I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll learn something about, like, his, his, uh, regimen, his routine." But what I ended up finding out, that actually David Goggins is one of the most interesting people to me, because it's not just about physical, the, the physicality for him. It's very, very mental, and the fact that it took him so long to get in the right mindset to be able to do the things that he has done it's absolutely incredible, and I think he's a very, very good example of what somebody who's mentally resilient, uh, is. He, uh, you know, he used to... He's faced everything from racism to physical abuse to emotional abuse at the hands of his parents, at the hands of his classmates. Um, he had a very, very difficult childhood, and then he used these, like, mental techniques to get more mentally tough and to be able to do these, like, physical challenges that he, um, imposed on himself.
- 2:36 – 4:08
Goggins’ ‘accountability mirror’: brutal honesty and micro-goals
- CWChris Williamson
What are some of the techniques that he uses?
- PPPolina Pompliano
One of them is, he calls it the accountability mirror. So when he weighed like 300 pounds, he was, uh, he worked as a... He was spraying for cockroaches. He, um, came home one night with this, like, massive Steak 'n Shake shake from Steak 'n Shake, uh, and he sat down to watch TV, 'cause that's what he did every single day. And he came across this documentary on Navy SEALs, and that's kind of what piqued his interest to start getting in shape and turning his life around. But the accountability mirror basically was he posted sticky notes all over his mirror that told him, "Okay, for the next day, you're not gonna lie to anybody, uh, in order to protect your own feelings or their feelings," or whatever, because we all do that, right? Like, we lie every single day. He wanted to stop lying to himself and others, so that was a goal. He set these like... And, and another goal was, be able to run one mile. And, and those are, those are super, super specific things, because when you look in the mirror, the only person you cannot lie to is yourself. So he, it sounds really harsh, but, uh, he looked in the mirror the first day and he said... He looked at his reflection and he was like, "You're fat, you're lazy, you're unhealthy, you're stupid." All the things that he believed about himself, and those sticky notes were his, um, kind of the, the steps he took to change that narrative, so when he looked in the mirror he was proud of what he was seeing.
- 4:08 – 5:44
The hidden costs of greatness: relationships, privacy, and sacrifice
- CWChris Williamson
What would you ask Goggins if you got to talk to him?
- PPPolina Pompliano
So many things. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Well, what were some of the things that you felt were missing? Like, let's say that you're really trying to dig deep and get into the source code of him. What couldn't you find on the internet that you need to know?
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yep. Uh, about his, uh, personal life, how he deals with relationships. I know he's engaged, but I know nothing about, uh, that journey. He, he, he very much... Uh, if you read it, he kind of almost sounds like selfish in the sense of, "I'm gonna improve myself to be the best person I can be," but you rarely see a glimpse of his, uh, personal/relationship status. Um, and I think that's on purpose. I think he wants to keep that, you know, uh, part of his life private. But I would be very curious. I, I'm actually very curious about that with a lot of people, because I think it's, it's easy to look at them and say, "Wow, look at all that they've accomplished," but like what have they sacrificed in the process? Um, I know he's been divorced, uh, previously, but I, I don't know the specifics. And to me, I, I read the whole like... For example, not to go off this tangent, but I, I read Ashlee Vance's biography, um, on Elon Musk, and my one question was, "Why is he in this relationship pattern?" Uh, and it's, it probably has a lot to do with certain insecurities he had as a child or whatever, but those were like... The tiny glimpses of that were really interesting to me, uh, because I think we tend to leave interpersonal relationships out of the narrative of success.
- 5:44 – 8:41
Why you shouldn’t envy high performers: domain success vs. life success
- CWChris Williamson
The ruthless thing about feeling jealous about somebody else, and about people that are high performers, is precisely what you've touched on there, that you don't know what that person's had to sacrifice to get to where they are. There's this example I always use. Have you heard of Eddie Hall? Do you know who he is? Strongest man on the planet.
- PPPolina Pompliano
No.
- CWChris Williamson
So he's a British guy. He was the strongest man in the world 2018, I want to say. And, um, he was six foot three.160 kilos. He was on the verge of death, basically. He couldn't walk up, like he was just, everything about him was fucked. His, um, marriage was falling apart, his wife was about to leave him, he didn't have a relationship with his kid, he was probably about to die because of all of the stresses he was putting his body under. And then just at the peak of that, he won The World's Strongest Man. And he said-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Hah.
- CWChris Williamson
... he said as he won it there and then, he was like, "That's me. I'm done. Like I've closed the loop. I'm now gonna save my marriage, I'm now gonna save my, uh, relationship with my daughter. I'm now gonna save my own health. As an athlete, I'm going to save my own health." And what we look at with someone like him or like David Goggins or like Elon Musk, the success that they have is so tightly bounded within a very narrow domain. And we in 2020 and 2021, we applaud and put on a pedestal success to such a degree that we're able to look at someone that has that sort of a life and then think that that constitutes success. Tiger Woods was in a, a car accident recently the other day, like that is a man whose life, whose entire life is epitomized in a car crash-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... other than the one thing that he's really, really superhuman at doing. He struggles with relationships. He had substance problems. He is injured all the time. It doesn't really seem like he loves himself. His dad abused him for years as a kid calling him the N-word. He had a sa- do you know he had a safe word with his dad?
- PPPolina Pompliano
I did not.
- CWChris Williamson
So you know like in rough sex people have a safe word?
- PPPolina Pompliano
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
His dad would be there on the course saying, "You're useless, this racist slur, you're that whatever." Um-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Ah.
- CWChris Williamson
But they had a word called the E-word and it was enough.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Oh, I did read, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did read about this.
- CWChris Williamson
It was in Ryan Holiday's, in one of Ryan Holiday's books. Um, but, but the sort of common theme there is we look at people's performance and their successes in such a tight window and the cult of personality and our, uh, adoration of success means that-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... we're happy to see someone nearly die, nearly lose their marriage, nearly do all of this stuff because we want them to be the super- the superhero for that thing. Um, but you don't-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you, you don't want their life. If you were to ask someone like, "Do you really want to swap with Elon Musk?" Like you don't know, he might not have had an erection in months. He might hate his body when he looks in the mirror. He might not be able to have silence in his head when he's, uh, when his head hits the pillow at night. Like is that the price you really want to pay to be him?
- 8:41 – 10:40
Audit the lifestyle, not the highlight reel: how to evaluate role models
- PPPolina Pompliano
I always say that every time that, let's say you wanna, let's say you're just out of college and you admire somebody and you're like, "I would love that life. I would love that career. I would love that path." What I recommend doing is if you can ideally you would call up the person or email them and try to talk to them and ask like, "Okay, but what have you had to sacrifice?" And like, "What does this look like?" Because we're really bad at predicting our future happiness and what better way than to find the person who is already there that we think has, has it all and ask them about the process of getting there. If you cannot, you know, interview them or meet with them in person, I would try to research every aspect of their life. Like that's what I did with Sara Blakely, um, try to research every aspect of their life. Look at interviews they've done. How do they present themselves? How do they answer questions about their (laughs) current relationship, et cetera? And then try to draw conclusions about yourself of like, okay, but you're gonna have to sacrifice, you know, having kids or not having time for your kids, all that stuff in order to get there. Is that worth it to you? If it is, go ahead. But like I think i- it opens your eyes to a lot of things that you might not want.
- CWChris Williamson
We often don't realize that these people are real humans. Like you look at someone like Goggins and you're like, that guy is just a like motivated, dedicated, kicking ass motherfucker.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You don't actually realize that there are these very, very human flaws that he has.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Absolutely. Like I would love to know the last time he was sad, like straight up, like cr- wanted to cry. I don't know that because w- we all show up as the people that we aspire to be a lot of times and not, you know, the people who we actually are. Uh, so in like those like super vulnerable moments, and I think actually I read his book and I think in there he shares a little bit of that, but most of the time it is you think of Goggins, you think of this like hard dude.
- 10:40 – 12:14
Goggins as ‘built not born’: alter egos and identity distance
- CWChris Williamson
It's different though when you are talking about a past sadness. Like it's easy for us to say like, "Oh, well, five years ago at the beginning of my journey when I did this thing." Because it's basically talking about not you, you're still creating some distance between-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... yourself and that. So another question, a question that I'd really love to ask him is when he looks in the mirror, does he still see someone who's fat and stupid and, and has all of the problems? There's a certain period of some formative years where I think we imprint a particular view of ourselves into our source code and sometimes it's very, very difficult to deprogram that. Um, and yeah, I want to know how much all of the stuff he does now has fixed all of the stuff he did then.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah. And maybe we'll get into this later, but he uses, uh, an alter ego to kind of, he used to refer to the weak part of himself that he thinks of as David Goggins, that's the guy who got bullied, that's the guy who, you know, was lazy and unhealthy and whatever. And then he says, that's why he says, "I was built, not born." He now refers to himself as Goggins when he looks in the mirror. And I think that over time, like maybe those two identities reconcile, but in the process, I, I don't know the answer to that question. Does he sometimes in certain instances say, "Ooh, that was, that was David Goggins. Like I have to act like Goggins now."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So he's distancing himself from the person that was-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that was weak. I mean, that's one way to deal with it, to basically Bruce Wayne and, and Batman it. Talking about-
- 12:14 – 14:44
Elon Musk’s edge: first-principles learning and original thinking
- PPPolina Pompliano
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... Elon Musk, obviously he's a super enigmatic guy and there's a lot that's been written about him. What were some of the principles that you learned that have contributed to his success?
- PPPolina Pompliano
I think, uh, Elon is truly one of the most innovative original thinkers, probably as close of an example that you can get to somebody like that in our generation certainly. Um, he, a lot of people call him crazy and insane because his ideas are so out there, but that's kind of what it takes to be an original thinker-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- PPPolina Pompliano
... and a lot of people don't realize that. Um, I read, uh, one of my favorite things that I've read is Tim Urban on Wait But Why, he did this whole thing on Elon Musk and his company Neuralink. Um, I think it's as long as a book, but it's, uh, a series of blog posts. So one of the things he says that has kind of stuck, actually two things, uh, two things he said that stuck in my head is, one, um, when Elon Musk looks at people, he actually sees computers. He looks at you and he's like, "Wow, Chris. Like look, you have the, uh, hardware that you were born with, which is your brain and the genes you got from your parents, but then there's also the software, the stuff that you consume on a daily basis, the content that you consume, the things that you learn that constantly upgrade your hardware. So what software are you installing in your mind on a daily basis?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- PPPolina Pompliano
And, and the way I think about it is like an iPhone, like are you operating at the latest iPhone update or are you still on like iOS 4? Um, some people choose to consume junk that kind of keeps them there, but people like Elon are constantly upgrading that hardware to make it, um, a tool that's ... He, he sees it, he sees the brain as a tool that's malleable, not something that's fixed and you're born with. The other thing that Tim Urban writes is that, um, in terms of the original thinking, that Elon is truly like a chef. He operates like a chef who invents recipes, who's a trailblazer, who doesn't copy other things. The cooks are the majority of society who basically there's a blueprint, they follow that broo- blueprint, which is the recipe, and they create something sort of new, but not truly original. Um, so, so I always think of that. Like every time I'm, I think I'm being original I'm like, "Eh, I, I, I think there was a blueprint for this and I'm just kind of revising it a little bit," but it's not a truly original thought.
- 14:44 – 16:46
Questioning assumptions: redefining what a ‘profile’ can be
- CWChris Williamson
I know that you're a fan of mental models and I came up with one the other day that I think relates to that. So it's called-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Tell me.
- CWChris Williamson
... the common thought razor. Your thoughts are far less unique than you think they are. If you've had a thought, assume that at least some significant minority of other people also have done.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I, so okay, can I give you an example of that? Um, when I first left Fortune to work on the profile full-time, I, my original goal was, "Oh, well this is great." So right now I curate a bunch of profiles in this newsletter, over time I'm gonna start writing original profiles. And, w- but like my thinking was so limited in that I came, uh, to the table with the assumptions that an original profile was text, a headline, text, maybe a photo, some more text, maybe a video that's relevant, some more text. That's, that's what a profile was, that's what I wrote for Fortune, that's what I wrote at CNN. Like all those things, um, had been defined way before my time. But who is to say that a profile looks, or that a block of text is a profile? We saw what, um, Brandon Stanton does with Humans of New York. That's, those are profiles, but they are profiles done, done in a different format. So then I was like oh my god, like okay. So then I asked my question, like what makes a profile a profile? How can you distill the essence of somebody into something that people will learn from or that like kind of shows who they are as a person? And the truth is, it could be in the form of audio, it could be in the form of video, it could be in the form of something that doesn't exist yet, but it was only when I started thinking that way that I was like oh, interesting, like I could help define what that is. Uh, but I, I still haven't gotten an answer to that, I'm still thinking about it, but I think that that's like the types of question we have, questions we have to ask ourselves instead of just assuming we know what something is, being like oh wait a second, who, who, who decided that a profile is a block of text?
- 16:46 – 20:51
Make time to think: exploration vs. exploitation and scheduled creativity
- CWChris Williamson
One of the things that I find works so well for me in terms of personal development is when I question my assumptions. And the weird thing about that is you can only really do it a couple of times a year, because it's very difficult to question your assumptions when you're busy doing, ge- taking care of the urgent and the important-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... but at the end of each year, people might do an end of year review and feel this, that they actually think like, "Well, hang on, I, I, I've had this thing that I've had in my morning routine or this way that I make my food or this particular w- uh, format in which my day is constructed," whatever it might be, "do I actually have to do that? Like do I re- do I genuinely really need to do that?" And when you question those assumptions, that's kind of when everything goes out and you get to go from much more a first principles perspective. You said that Elon sort of is a, a true first principles thinker, and I'd agree. Do you think there's anyone from history that would be similar to him? Is there anyone that you've found, or anyone alive?
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah. Uh, from history, I think, I think you could say da Vinci was a really original thinker. He kind of, uh, looked at two disparate ideas and allowed his brain to make natural connections between them. I think one of the examples is how he, uh, basically was, um, what was he doing? He threw a rock into a well and he saw the, the ripples in the water at the same time that a church bell went off and he heard the sound and how it kind of like was really strong and then it dissipated. So that kind of led to his theory that sound travels in waves. Um, I, I mean that's, that's pretty original, um, but you have to let your brain kind of do the work for you. I think another really, really original thinker that I was inspired by is Grant Achatz, who is a chef. He has a restaurant in Chicago called Alinea. Multiple times it's been called the best restaurant in the world. He, um...... he ba- basically challenges every s- sort of assumption that's been around forever, uh, kind of like, for example, uh, uh, he gets inspired by everything. So, he'll go, go to a museum, look at, uh, art on the wall and say, "Why can't I eat off of that?" So, okay, then he, like, um, puts... he creates the whole table to look like a painting that you can eat off of. But also, he's like, um, "Who, why do plate manufacturers decide, like, how I'm gonna display my food? And, um, I don't wanna be limited to that. And why do we make this motion, uh, when we eat, which is, like, how we eat always?" Um, so he scrapped that. He created something that's like a floating food. When it floats to you, you can eat it. It disrupts the motion of eating from, uh, hand to mouth, which is crazy. Um, but I, I just, I like people like that because yes, they're original thinkers, but I think, to your point a little bit, when you're busy, you don't have time for that. So, uh, Spotify, uh, CEO Daniel Ek says that he literally bakes that thinking time into his schedule, where it's uninterrupted time to question those a- those assumptions 'cause I agree, like, in the weeks where I'm super busy, I don't have time to think about what a profile looks like. Uh, but if you, if you give a little bit of, uh, distance and time to your brain to think about those things, it really helps.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, the explore versus exploit paradigm, as James Clear talks about it, where you do spend more time. But as we get older and presumably more successful or more... uh, at least we get more status around the things that we do, we become entrenched in those thinking patterns, in those working patterns. And, um, you must see this with your business as well, that when you find a little bit of success, it's actually really difficult to let go of that 'cause you're like, "Well, no, like, that, that's actually worked. I've been playing around, trying to desperately get something to go well, I finally managed to do it." And there's this bit of me that's saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but let's see if we can do it better." And you're like, "No, fuck you."
- PPPolina Pompliano
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(Laughs) "Like, I've just, I've just about managed to get something to not be terrible. Like, le- le- let's keep going on that." You said about, um, Elon constantly upgrading his mind.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- 20:51 – 23:01
Upgrading the mind + staying flexible: learning trees, menus, and evolution
- CWChris Williamson
What, what are some of the practices that he does for that to occur?
- PPPolina Pompliano
Um, uh, like, for example, he'll pick something and he'll start learning it from scratch. Like, you can't learn about rockets unless you learn about physics (laughs) . Uh, so he starts from, like, the... he r- describes his learning process as, um, a, a tree. So, you have to start at the roots before you go to the trunk, before you go through, to the branches and the leaves. You can't start with the leaves and then work your way backwards. Uh, and the leaves being the minute details, uh, of, you know, rockets. So, I think that's one. Uh, Grant Achatz makes his staff blow up the menu every six months, no matter how successful it is. And so, that's, like, that's the whole thing, because he believes that success can lead to complacency. And when you're complacent, you can't be original, you can't be innovative. So, no matter how great it is, and his whole staff is like, "Oh, come on, man. Like, this is the best menu we've created," and he's like, "Nope, gotta innovate." Um, and the other person who does this, uh, that I mentioned already is, uh, Humans of New York creator, Brandon Stanton. He started... um, the... Humans of New York has evolved so much that he's said that criticism that he received about Humans of New York two years ago never applies today because he's evolved it so much. He went from, uh, just photographing people on the street, to adding a little quote, to doing a whole interview, to doing a book, to doing a profile series, kind of, uh, one person, several posts. Then when the pandemic hit, he started doing them remote. And he was like, "Wherever the wind was blowing, I was always willing to take what I'm working on right now and whatever's been successful, drop it, and move in that direction." And I think that as long as you keep in your mind the overall mission and brand promise of what you're working on is, as long as you keep that in mind and you always deliver on that, the, the how you get there can vary. And I think not a lot of people are willing to drop everything and go in a different direction.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that how you've tried to apply this to the things that you do?
- 23:01 – 26:38
Criticism as signal: assume it’s true—then check the source
- PPPolina Pompliano
Absolutely. Always. Um, whenever I get criticism, uh... Kat Cole says this, she says, "Whenever somebody criticizes something you do, no matter how rude or the manner it's in, if it feels mean or offensive or whatever, the first thing you should do is just assume that it's true." If you approach your life as, like, you just assume it's true, then you can be like, "Oh, maybe, like, there's a grain of truth here." And to be honest (laughs) , Chris, like, at Fortune, I wrote a daily newsletter, and the feedback was brutal. Especially in the very early days, I, you know, I didn't have such thick skin, um, so things would get to me and I would remember, I'd be like, "Damn," like, "Am I not a good writer?" But once you hear something over and over again, you're like, "Okay, let me try this other thing, and if it doesn't work, like, maybe I'm just... it's not for me." But I found that, um, just taking the feedback, evolving what you do, and then looking back and being like, "Was that a good decision or did I just do that because I got nervous and whatever?" uh, it helps inform a lot about, uh, your business, and it helps you, like, it helps you not get stale.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it's an interesting one that. I, um, I vacillate with my opinions around criticism. Some of the things and some of the changes I've made have actually been borne out of stuff that people say. Mm, the challenge I think I would have with, at first, going from base this is true as opposed to base this person is a complete idiot is that-
- PPPolina Pompliano
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... the vast majority of stuff that I see on the internet falls into category two than category one, um, and-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I had Seth Godin on the show actually, and he was talking around criticism, and he said that he removed comments from his blog. Because he knew-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that if he left comments on his blog, he would make each post just a little bit longer with a couple more caveats in, and he'd have some more prepositions in there, and he try and sort of assess what people ... He was second order writing the article to debate against the point at which he thought people were going to... And they got rid of it. And people were like, "You, you can't get rid of the comments on a blog. It's a blog." He's like, "Well, no, I just did." And, um, and now he's like, "My w- my writings got linearly better ever since I had." Um, yeah, I think criticism and the way that people deal with it is quite individual. But if you could get away with taking it like that, I think that it's very beneficial.
- PPPolina Pompliano
So hold on and, and let me just add this very important thing that it matters the source, right? Like, be mindful of the source. I probably don't listen to 99% of the things that people on Twitter say to me, probably because they are not people who read my work on a, a weekly basis. They are not people who actually took the time to give me mindful feedback. I think, like Seth said, okay, shut down the comments, but the people who go through all the hurdles to find your email, to get into your inbox, to share something thoughtful, those are the people I'm like, "Oh, okay, like, you actually took time and you went through all these obstacles to get to me. I should probably listen."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Uh, uh, yeah, the source is incredibly important.
- CWChris Williamson
Absolutely. I mean, I got this message, I still haven't replied to it, it's still in my message requests, uh, on Instagram. This guy identified a bunch of stuff to do with the previous guest that I'd had on and gave me this really long rebuttal, but it was super well thought out, very complimentary, very, very mindful. And I just thought, like, "I need to..." The reason I haven't replied is 'cause I'm not, I can't just sort of dismiss this.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
I can't decide delete it or say like, "Thanks, mate. Cheers. Give me a-"
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah. (laughs)
- 26:38 – 35:55
The Rock tweeted her: serendipity, shipping, and the perfection trap
- CWChris Williamson
"... give, give me a review on, on iTunes." Like, so yeah, I had to... I, I'm gonna go back to that, but very much I think you can, you can take it, take it with a pinch of salt when it's needed. You looked at, um, The Rock as well, and then he tweeted you.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, first off, what's it feel like to have The Rock tweet you? And then what did you learn from profiling him?
- PPPolina Pompliano
Insane. Um, so, so The Rock (laughs) in this...
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- PPPolina Pompliano
Actually-
- CWChris Williamson
What version? How did we end up in a version of the simulation where we're talking about when The Rock tweeted me? Like-
- PPPolina Pompliano
It's so wild.
- CWChris Williamson
... what the fuck?
- PPPolina Pompliano
I can't even... So, okay, so The Rock... So, okay, so I, I published these, uh, I call them the profile dossier, which is deep dive on an individual person, comes out every Wednesday. I do a lot of these. I've probably done over 50 now every single week (laughs) uh, for almost a year. And the... Typically, the people, um, are, are cross-industry, entertainment, sports, business, fashion, whatever it may be. But the one thing that I pride myself on is there's a section in that little profile I write about them called Techniques to Try. So these are super practical things you can learn from people like Elon Musk or Charlie Munger, Sara Blakely, and I distill them and I'm like, "Here's what you can learn from the way this person sees the world." But typically, they're very, very specific. I wanted to do a profile on The Rock 'cause I thought he was really interesting, but when I kind of was writing it, I was like, "Oh, this feels a little bit like, um, soft. Like, it feels motivational and inspirational, but there isn't that element of super, super specific practical things," right? Um, so, so I was like, "I mean, it's good. I like it. It's fine." But I figured, I was like, "You know what? I'm gonna publish this on, um, Christmas day," which I think was a Wednesday, uh, when, like, people are, you know, they're not really reading, they're with their family. Like, this one, I didn't feel like it was my best work. But the thing I learned is that you can't always plan success. (laughs) And, um, I, I w- I think David Perell said this once, he said something like, "Everything you put out into the world, whether, whether it's a podcast, a newsletter, anything, it is a vehicle for serendipity. You don't know whose eyes it's gonna get in front of, who's gonna listen to it, who's gonna forward it to The Rock." Uh, so what I didn't know is I tweeted, uh, my dossier on The Rock and I tagged him on Twitter, as I do with everybody that I profile if they have a Twitter account. What I didn't know is that The Rock, like, manages his own social media, and he happened to see it in his mentions. And actually, um, I tweeted it on Christmas Eve that it was coming out the next day, and he was like, "Can't wait to read it, Polina." And I was like, "Oh my God. What?" (laughs) And then the next day, I published it, tagged him again. He actually read it. Not only did he read it and like it, he tweeted about it four times. He has like 15 million Twitter followers. Then he put it on his Facebook, then he put it on Instagram a week later when he has like more than 220 million, uh, people. And I was like, "Literally, you couldn't pay anybody to do better marketing for your work than this." Um, and I... it just... I mean, it was awesome, but it just goes to show that you just... if you take that small extra step of tagging somebody on Twitter or forwarding the email to their people, you just never know where, like, you'll get, quote unquote, "lucky".
- CWChris Williamson
How do people avoid the perfection trap when doing that? Because trying to cover all of the bases can often end up with people not shipping work at a pace which is required to iterate and grow, and I don't know whether-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I would be interested to know whether the vast majority of people undershoot and ship too fast at too low of a quality or overshoot and ship too slowly at too high of a quality. But Tiago Forte had this quote, which you may have seen, uh, from the other day, which is unbelievable, and he said, "A paradoxical thing about people who consistently choose the most high leverage activity is their efforts have a rough edged half-assed quality, because polishing things to perfection is a low leverage activity."
- PPPolina Pompliano
Absolutely. Oh, okay.
- CWChris Williamson
So good. And then this other guy replied and said, "Perfectionism is a nice way to hide from shipping at a pace necessary to find what works."
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yes. Oh my God. Um, okay. So, uh, I think I realized this when I realized that, um, doing good work is actually the enemy of perfection, and also that perfection's a mental construct that doesn't really exist. Honestly, to me, that Rock profile wasn't perfection. To The Rock it may have been. Like to the fact that I never interviewed him for this, and he thought his story was well-told enough to share it with his audience. I mean, that's, that's a massive compliment, right? So for me, there is nothing worse than seeing super talented people who are waiting for something to be perfect and polished and beautiful until they launch it, and they're not, um, focusing on let's like, let's like put this out there, see how people react, and then the next version will be much better. Because nothing that exists today, exists in its current form without having to go through that iterative process. Humans of New York started as something bad. It evolved into something amazing, but it would never gotten to where it is now if it hadn't gotten like, if Brandon hadn't just started and gotten all that feedback and learned, "Oh wait, I'm not the best photographer, but I'm really damn good at talking to strangers." Like that's something you learn in the process and that's why like I've honestly, I've never been afraid of somebody giving me feedback because I know it can be better, but I am afraid of waiting for something to be perfect in my mind, putting it out there and then getting crickets and being like, "Oh well, guess nobody saw my beautiful perfect thing."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah. No one except for you knows the potential that you left on the field.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
No one at all. You... I'm going through a couple of YouTube courses at the moment, and one of the things that they're really trying to drill into, uh, all of the creators is look, even if you think that you were a bit tired that day, a bit sloppy, you didn't like your hair, you thought the lines weren't so slick or whatever it is, no one else knows what it could have been.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Only you know what it could have been. It's a very odd asymmetry, like a reverse parasocial relationship with your own creation, where you're like, "I'm the only one that actually knows what it was supposed to be, could have been." Everybody else thinks that's just what you put out there, and if you go about it with enough gumption and energy, they're probably gonna be seduced into thinking... I mean, what did we say at the beginning of this? Like there are people out there who can annihilate their entire life and win at a thing and people think that they're great. Like if they can do that-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
... if they can do that, you can probably get away with thinking like, "Well yeah, maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough," which is what Seth Godin says his rule of thumb is. What, talk us through the specific techniques that you learned from The Rock. Are you getting up at 4:00 AM and doing kettlebell swings or something?
- PPPolina Pompliano
(laughs) Definitely not. Um, so, uh, let's see, The Rock. One of the things he says is that, um, he, I, I think this is slightly, uh, similar to the complacency that I talked about. He, as a kid, he wasn't great. He was arrested, he was like stealing, he, you know, he, he did a bunch of things that he's not proud of. Uh, but, and he failed at a bunch of things, but he, um, he says, "Always keep your failures at the forefront of your mind." And he says like, "By living life as if he is one week from getting evicted or one day away." Like you kind of start to realize like all of us, um, you never know what's gonna happen, and it is a very fine line between your great success and losing it all. He's been there, he's seen what can happen. He had a great like football career, that came to an end due to an injury. You never, like Tiger Woods, I mean, God forbid, but like who knows what happened in that car crash and who knows what the future of his career is. When, um, when your success depends on something external that you could lose, then it's very, very hard to live in peace. Um, but I think that his whole thing is, "I keep my failures at the forefront of my mind because I know what it's like to have been there, and I'm not afraid to be there again because I know I can build it back up," or whatever he tells himself. But I, I just, I think that there's great value in going through something really, really difficult and not kind of forgetting about it or shoving it to the back of your mind and constantly reminding of yours- yourself, "Hey, by the way, like things could, things could be bad again. But I think I have all the tools necessary to get through it."
- 35:55 – 1:08:58
Self-esteem, ‘oh shit’ moments, and high-performer patterns (reinvention + alter egos)
- CWChris Williamson
That self-esteem is, it's a topic, it's a word that I just, I hadn't heard for ages. And then Naval tweeted it toward the back end of last year and said, "Self-esteem is the reputation you have with yourself you'll always know." And we talk a lot about confidence and charisma and being outgoing and extroversion. Everyone's a- addicted to talking about whether you're an introvert or an extrovert.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But no one ever actually talks about self-esteem. And it very much is, James Clear says, um, "Decide the sort of person you want to be, prove it to yourself with progressively bigger wins." And-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that's what self-esteem is. One of the things I've been thinking about a lot is, I, I've gained a lot of self-esteem over the last couple of years, and I, I wanna try and work out where it's come from because it's quite useful. And, uh-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) and um, I think a big part of it has just been progressively bigger wins, that I did some stuff that I was successful at but didn't, wasn't super meaningful to me throughout my 20s. And now I do something which is pretty meaningful to me and I'm like, "Okay, there's only so many times that you can succeed in the real world and your imposter syndrome still cut through it and say, 'Yeah, but you didn't deserve that.'"Like-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... after a while, the imposter syndrome just has to fuck off, because you're like, "Well, I just- I, I keep on- you keep on saying I'm not gonna do it, and then I kind of inevitably, at one point, I do get there." Um, so yes-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... self-esteem and building yourself up like that, having faith that the future you will deal with whatever happens. Like, everybody that's listening to this podcast right now, no matter all of the catastrophes, the late nights, the sweaty sheets, the neurotic thought leaps, all of that stuff, no matter everything that you thought was going to end your life, you're here-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... listening to this podcast, absolutely fine. Like, if that isn't a sign that you're probably gonna be okay, that the thing you're worried about is probably going to end up all right, I don't know what is.
- PPPolina Pompliano
Yes. And I, I call this, like, the, like the "oh, shit" moments. So when, um ... I've had many of those, but one that I remember very clearly is when I was at Fortune. I was just a reporter and, um, the person who was writing Fortune's daily deal-making newsletter, Term Sheet, left. Term Sheet is a beast of a newsletter. You gotta go through all the deals, you gotta figure out who's buying who, who's raising funding, which firm is raising a fund. Like, you're going through all this. On top of that, you have to write something intelligent and some sort of analysis at the top for these very important people who are reading this newsletter. I was acutely aware of this. I did not think I was in any way qualified. Nobody knew who the hell I was. And this person left, the, the writer of the newsletter left, and they were like, "Well, Paulina, like, literally, you're the closest we have to somebody who may be able to write this. But, like, you're gonna be doing this for the interim while we find somebody who's actually, um, you know, can do this." And so I- so they asked me, right? So they went, "Do you want to?" (laughs) And I was like, "Uh, I really don't." But in my head, my head was going, "No, no, no, no, no." And I was like, "Absolutely. I would love to give it a shot." And then I went home and I was like, "What the hell have you done?" But I think, like, the moments for me that build up my self-esteem are the moments where you drop me, like, in the middle of the ocean-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- PPPolina Pompliano
... and you say, "Swim," and I'm like ... I, I became best friends with Google. I called everybody I knew. I asked them to teach me things. I have never learned so much in the span of, like, a year ever. Um, but it proved to me that, like, if I genuinely want to be good at something, I can figure out a way to do it. Um, typically, it's not a learning problem, it's a motivational problem. And, um, I recently had this conversation with Carolyn Joyce. She's a three-time Olympic swimmer. And I talked to her, and she felt like there was this one race, it was a qualifier for the Olympics, it was her third one. And she was sitting in this dark room, and she had a really rough year. She had, like, back injuries. Like, she was get- she felt like she was getting slower and wasn't at the top of her game. And she's sitting in this dark room, about to get out on the blocks to race, and she goes, "I f- I just felt my mind just be like, 'Ugh,' but like, 'You're not that fast,'" and like, all these negative things. And she's like, "Positive thinking does not work for me." I can't just be like, "You know what, Carolyn? Snap out of it. Like, just be positive." So she said the thing that helps her is playing a mental movie of exactly those "oh, shit" moments. The moments where somebody said, "You sh- you're probably not qualified to do it," but you did it anyway. I think a men- playing a mental movie of those is much more powerful than just, like, faking it till you make it or telling yourself you can do something when you have no proof for it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So it's retrospectively looking back at times when you thought all holy hell was gonna be unleashed on you, and then somehow you came out on the other side. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I have a buddy who likes to spend a lot of money. And he-
- PPPolina Pompliano
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... he (laughs) always says, "Future Andrew will pay, will pay the bill." And, um-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Huh?
- CWChris Williamson
... that's basically the same from a financial perspective, that he'll spend the money now. He'll buy the Bugatti, he'll get the business class flight, he'll do the whatever, because he has faith, he has so much faith that future Andrew will get it sorted. Um ...
- PPPolina Pompliano
Interesting. Wow. So, like, faith in your future self to not be dumb. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Having, having faith in your future self. But I think that can really only come out of self-esteem. And what we see, and one of the reasons I think that we get triggered by people who have confidence which is undue, or we believe is undue, is that if you're someone who is more self-critical, more realistic with your own worldview, it almost feels like that person has got self-esteem without having done the stuff to deserve it. You're like, "Well, hang on a second."
- PPPolina Pompliano
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"That person gets all of the benefits of believing in themselves, but they've done even less than me. Like, how the fuck are they able to believe in themselves?" So yeah. I think there's, there's sort of two, maybe two hemispheres to this. One of them is to try and look for positive outcomes wherever you can to avoid slipping into a negativity trap. But on the flip side of that, to actually continue to prove these things to yourself with those small wins, and then to reflect on the times where you did defeat all of the demons of hell and come out of the swim meet okay, or get the newsletter done when you had absolutely no idea about this particular type of market or whatever it is. And as well, that's, those are the things that make us feel alive. Like, you don't feel alive-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
... when everything's going fine. You feel alive when you left the dissertation until two days before it needed to be handed in, or the project, a group project, and you order a Domino's at 3:00 AM and you're in the office and you're sleeping under the desks. And then you get up the next morning and you couldn't believe it, but you smashed it and, like, go team and high fives. Like, that's, that's living. Um-
- PPPolina Pompliano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It really is. You looked at Kris Jenner, which was a surprising one.
- PPPolina Pompliano
(laughs)
Episode duration: 1:08:58
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Transcript of episode mW4_Qx7Fgq8
